


Unrequited

by lasairfhiona



Category: Profiler
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-26
Updated: 2010-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-13 09:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasairfhiona/pseuds/lasairfhiona





	Unrequited

Bailey sat on the leather sofa in his office, fingering the glass of Scotch.  He'd cut back on the amount he drank after he and Sam founded the VCTF several years ago.  He knew she worries about him and he hadn't wanted to add any more worried to her already troubled life, so he'd largely given up even this small pleasure.  Still , he'd kept the decanter around for the occasional drink with a visitor and for times like now.  Times when he really needed the numbing effects of the alcohol.

He turned slightly and leaned his arm along the back of the sofa.  He couldn't begin to count the number of times he'd sat like this talking to Sam.  It always seemed they'd wind up like this, home, office, wherever they found a sofa.  She'd sit on "her" end close enough that if he'd reach out her hand would always be there to grasp his and hold on, their fingers intertwining. 

Only... Only now her hand wasn't there.  She wasn't at the other end of the sofa.  She wasn't in the office next to his.  She was gone.  Bailey rattled the ice in his glass then downed the last gulp of the amber liquid as he replayed earlier that day...

...I just stood there and watched her walk out of the office.  It was so much like the first time she left the bureau, after Tom was killed.  Only that time I knew where she was going.  I knew she'd be safe.  This time, though, I don't know where she's going.  I just know that she is leaving, and probably this time for good.  I asked her to let me know and she said she would.  I have to accept and trust that she will be in touch when she is good and ready.

I know why she's going.  I even understand it.  She and Chloe need time to heal.  Time to calm the nightmares they have been living since Jack entered their lives and proceeded to shred it one piece at a time.  They need time to learn how to be normal again, with no serial killers lurking waiting to tear them apart, no FBI interfering in how they live.  Just a chance to be a normal family again.

As I gave her that last hug before she left, I thought about how good she felt in my arms.  How right it felt having here there.  Sam and I have been dancing around each other for several years now but we never had the timing right.  Rachael pegged it when she asked if I was in love with Sam, I guess I never realised just how much my feelings for her showed.  I'm not even sure when the love I feel for her changed form being friends to wanting to love her and never let her go.  Probably after Coop was killed.

She was so afraid then to love another person that no one could get close to her romantically.  It wasn't until Donald Lucas was captured that she even dared to allowed herself to feel something for a man again.  We had been so good at hiding our feelings that it never occurred to us to bring them out into the light of day.  By the time I realised that now maybe we could have a chance and she wouldn't have to be afraid that Jack would kill another man she loved, Paul Sterling was already in her life and making he look like a school girl again.  I questioned their relationship and disapproved until I took a really good look at how happy she was.  She glowed. I hadn't seen her look like that since Coop and Tom before him.

And again it's the wrong time.  This time there isn't another man, this time she's just leaving to get herself together.  I watched her walk out the door and down the corridor with only a glance back at what she was leaving.  The job called to me again and I had to turn away  to answer the phone...

...*Goodbye Sam,* he thought.

Bailey sat the empty glass he'd been holding down and turned back toward the low table in front of the sofa where the decanter sat along with the letters she'd given him to give the rest of the team. *Might as well face the music* he thought

Bailey grabbed the letter as he stood and headed out toward the bullpen where they were wrapping up the final bits on Jack.

"Bail?" Grace questioned as she saw him approach.

"Letters from Sam." He said, holding up the three white envelopes.

He made his way around the long conference table, handing each one out.  "John... Gracie...George..." Then he headed back toward his office without another word.

"She's gone?" Grace asked.

 Bailey nodded without turning or stopping.

"Bailey I could...you know...keep track of her for you..." George offered.

Bailey stopped, it would be so easy to let George keep tabs on her.  It would ease all their minds about the absent member of their family, but he couldn't.  he knew how much Sam had hated living in her glass house.  "No Georgie.  She'll call when she's ready," he said as he continued toward his office.  Bailey had to trust in that belief.


End file.
